Chapter 39
THIRTY-NINE
I’d been sitting on my couch since I left the hockey game early, replaying the same scene over and over in my head. Drew’s face contorted with rage. His fist connecting with Liam’s jaw. The blood on the ice. And Liam’s lips moving while his own frustration was mirrored on his face.
I love her, Drew. I fucking love her.
There’d been people whispering around us, so I wasn’t sure I’d heard him right. After sitting here waiting for him to arrive, I’d convinced myself I’d imagined those words and heard what I wanted to hear instead of what he’d actually said.
Because Liam didn’t fall in love. He’d always been clear about that.
He didn’t think he was capable.
Two raps on my door pulled me from my stupor. I pushed myself off the couch and padded to the door, my heart hammering against my ribs. I opened the door and found him standing there, his face bruised and his lip swollen while rain had started to fall behind him in sheets.
“Hey.” His voice was hoarse, his green eyes searching my face like he was looking for something specific.
“Hey.”
We both stood there for a moment too long before I realized he was getting soaked.
“Come inside. You’re getting rained on.”
“I noticed.” The corner of his lips lifted in that soft little smirk he’d sometimes give me, but he didn’t move toward the doorway. Instead, he reached for my hand. “Come outside with me.”
I blinked at him. “What? It’s pouring.”
“I know.”
“Liam, we’re gonna get soaked. Just—come inside.”
His fingers tightened around mine, and he tugged gently until I stumbled across the threshold. The rain hit me immediately in fat, cold drops that plastered my hair to my face within seconds.
“Did my brother give you a concussion when he hit you?” I tried to pull back toward the apartment, but he held firm, walking backward and dragging me with him until we were standing in the middle of the courtyard.
The rain was coming down harder now, soaking through my thin T-shirt and making me shiver. “Li, this is insane. Let’s go inside.”
“There’s just something we need to do first.”
Before I could ask what he meant, his hands were cupping my face, tilting it up toward his. And then his mouth was on mine.
Everything disappeared—the rain, the cold, the chaos of the day, the image of my brother’s fist connecting with Liam’s face.
All that existed was the press of his lips against mine, urgent and tender at the same time.
His thumbs traced along my cheekbones while the rain ran down both our faces, mingling between our mouths.
I melted into him.
My hands fisted in his soaked shirt, pulling him closer even though there was no space left between us. He groaned against my mouth, the sound vibrating through my entire body, and deepened the kiss until I couldn’t remember why I’d ever been cold.
This wasn’t like our other kisses. Those had been hungry, desperate, tinged with the thrill of secrecy. This one was different. Slower. Like he was trying to memorize the shape of my mouth. Like he wanted to savor the moment.
When he finally pulled back, we were both breathing hard. Rain ran in rivulets down his face, dripping off the sharp edge of his jaw and his bruised cheek which looked even worse up close. But his eyes—God, his eyes were looking at me like I was the only thing in the world worth seeing.
“There,” he said softly. “Now your bucket list is complete.”
The words knocked the air from my lungs.
Kiss outside in the rain.
The last item.
I’d been so lost in the kiss that I’d forgotten. But he hadn’t. He’d remembered exactly what we were supposed to be doing here—checking off boxes on a list I’d made when I was angry over a guy who didn’t matter in the long run.
This was only supposed to continue until the list was done.
And now it was.
I was more convinced than ever that I’d hallucinated him saying those words on the ice.
“Right.” My voice came out steadier than I felt. Thank God for years of practice hiding what I actually wanted. “The list. Thank you for helping me complete it.”
Something flickered across his face. Confusion, maybe. Or disappointment. But it was gone before I could name it.
“We should go inside,” he said. “You’re shivering.”
He was right. Now that the kiss was over, the cold had come rushing back, and my teeth were starting to chatter. We walked back to my apartment in silence, water squelching in our shoes with every step.
I couldn’t remember the last time it had rained this hard, and I wondered if Mother Nature was having a laugh at me. Or was mimicking the feelings that were brewing inside of me because right now I felt like crying harder than the rain.
Once we were inside, I grabbed towels from the bathroom and tossed one to him. We dried off in silence, the air between us thick, but I was too in my head to figure out why. Maybe I just didn’t want to.
The list was done.
Which meant we were supposed to be done too.
“Hey, you okay?”
I glanced up, realizing I’d been zoning out. “Yeah, just really tired. Sorry.”
His brow furrowed as he stared at me like he was hoping I’d say more. “Can I stay tonight?” His voice was soft. Almost uncertain, which was strange for Liam, especially considering he’d stayed over plenty of times since school had started back up.
Every self-preserving instinct in my body was screaming at me to send him away, to start building the walls I was going to need to survive losing him. But if I was going to get one more night with him, I was going to take it. “Sure.”
We changed into dry clothes—him into a pair of sweatpants he’d left here last time he stayed the night, and me into shorts and an oversized shirt that might have been his at some point.
I couldn’t remember anymore. Our things had gotten tangled together over the summer, mixed up in ways that would take weeks to untangle.
I climbed into bed first, and he followed, sliding under the covers beside me.
His arm slid possessively over my stomach, pulling me tighter against him, my back to his front.
I grabbed his hand, pulling it up to my chest and holding it there, holding him close.
My eyes closed as I soaked in his warmth.
This was nice. This was enough.
I repeated the lie to myself like a mantra.
His breath was warm against my neck, slow and steady, and I waited for his hand to slide lower. For him to turn me around and kiss me again. For things to progress the way they always did when we were alone together.
But minutes passed, and he just held me.
His thumb traced lazy circles on my collarbone, but there was nothing sexual about it. No urgency. No move to turn this into anything more.
My throat tightened.
We’d never not had sex when we were alone together—not since the first time we started having sex.
This was it, then. The transition back to what we’d been before. He was already putting me back in the friend box—even though I knew in my soul I’d outgrown that box and would never fit there again.
But the bucket list was done, which meant we were done. And Liam, being Liam, was making it easy. He’d hold me tonight because he was kind, because he cared about me as a person even if he didn’t want me the way I wanted him. And tomorrow, we’d go back to normal. Whatever normal even meant anymore.
I’d known this was coming. I’d known from the very beginning that this arrangement had an expiration date. That had been the whole point.
No strings.
No expectations.
No broken hearts.
Except I’d gone and broken my own heart anyway.
Because somewhere between the first kiss and the last item on my list, I’d fallen completely, stupidly, irreversibly in love with him.
And I couldn’t tell him.
The realization sat heavy in my chest, pressing down until I could barely breathe.
I thought about all those months ago when I’d written that list—angry and hurt and determined to prove Chris wrong.
I’d told myself it was about confidence.
About taking control of my own sexuality. About proving I wasn’t boring.
But completing the list hadn’t made me brave. Not really. Because here I was, lying in the arms of the man I loved, and I couldn’t open my mouth and say the words.
I love you.
Three syllables. Eight letters. The easiest sentence in the world, and I couldn’t force it past my lips.
Because what if I was wrong? What if I really had imagined those words on the ice, heard what I desperately wanted to hear instead of what he’d actually said?
What if I told him the truth and watched his face shift into that gentle, apologetic expression—the one that said I care about you, but not like that?
Liam shifted behind me, pulling me closer, and I squeezed my eyes shut against the tears threatening to fall.
This was what I did. What I’d always done. I made myself small. I tucked my feelings away where they couldn’t bother anyone. I smiled and said everything was fine and pretended I wasn’t dying inside because that was easier than risking rejection.
The bucket list was supposed to change that. It was supposed to teach me to want things out loud, to stop editing myself, to believe that my desires weren’t shameful or excessive.
But here I was, at the end of it all, and I was still the same girl who’d rather swallow her own heart than risk having it handed back to her in pieces.
“You sure you’re okay?” Liam’s voice was soft against my ear, rough with something I couldn’t identify.
“Yeah.” The word came out steadier than I felt. “Just really tired. It’s been a crazy day.”
“Tell me about it.” He pressed a kiss to my shoulder—so casual, so tender, and so much more devastating than he probably knew. “Try to get some sleep, okay? We can talk tomorrow.”
Tomorrow. When he’d probably give me some version of the “this was fun but we both knew it wasn’t going to last” speech. When he’d assure me that nothing had to change between us, that we could still be friends, that this didn’t have to be weird.
And I’d smile and nod and tell him I understood completely.
Because that’s what I did. That’s who I was. I was the low-maintenance girl who never asked for more than people wanted to give.
“Goodnight, Li,” I whispered.
“Night, Sunshine.”
The nickname wrapped around me like a knife. I’d always loved when he called me that—loved the way it made me feel special, like I was something bright in his world. But now it just reminded me of everything I was about to lose.
I lay there in the dark, listening to his breathing even out as he drifted off to sleep. His arm stayed wrapped around me, warm and solid and achingly perfect.
And I let myself have this one last night.
Tomorrow, I’d start the process of putting myself back together. Tomorrow, I’d smile and pretend and bury everything I felt so deep that no one would ever know how badly this had broken me.
But tonight—just for tonight—I’d let myself love him.
Even if I could never tell him.
Even if he’d never know.